I've actually been skiing for the past three weeks, and I just realized I hadn't written anything about it yet.
This year, which I think is my 18th season at Sugarbush as an instructor, is going to be different than any other seasons in the past. Back in October, I was sitting in a waiting room at Sloan Kettering, waiting for the CT scan that would tell me if I'd be healthy enough to ski this year, when my phone rang.
It was one of my supervisors from Sugarbush, and I was glad to hear his voice. I told him that I'd been meaning to send him and my other boss an email, letting them know what I hoped to do this coming winter. My goal was to teach younger kids this year. There were two reasons for this. First, it would give me more good experience with younger children, which is helpful for a certification exam I hope to take this season or next. Secondly, in case I struggled at all physically, I thought that skiing with the younger children would be easier.
But, that phone call changed everything. It turned out that one of my supervisors was gone from the mountain and the other was taking over the program where I work. And, he needed an assistant and thought I was the right person for the job.
I told him I needed to finish my day at Sloan Kettering before I answered, but that I was definitely interested.
And so, it happened, and after 17 years just teaching and minding my own business, I'm now a (low level) supervisor. I am essentially in charge of the coaches who teach the youngest kids, so I'm getting my wish to work with the smaller children. But, a lot of the coaching I'm doing is with other instructors, rather than the public.
Two plus weeks ago, I did my own day of required pre-season training on a Saturday. The following day, I got to ski with some friends for the day - something I don't get to do very often.
One plus week ago, I spent the weekend training the instructors who are reporting to me this winter. We have a lot of new instructors, and I was very impressed at how good they all were. Some have taught skiing before at other mountains. Some came through our intern program at Sugarbush. And, others had experience with young children (various outdoor camps, whitewater rafting, being a nanny, etc.). So far, they've all done a great job.
This past weekend, we started teaching our students for the season. As usual, we had some hiccups the first weekend, but nothing too major. It's always a challenge with the younger kids to group them appropriately, and we still need to move a few students to different groups.
But, I was very impressed by the work I saw from my new charges, and I'm very optimistic about the season. I spent the weekend skiing from one group to another, offering tips to the coaches to help with opening weekend issues.
At their young ages, the very first thing we want to work on with the kids is balance. And, balance starts with stance. We want the skiers to be tall in their stance and also forward. It's amazing how much you can change a child's skiing just by getting them to stand up taller. Children who were in wedges constantly suddenly come parallel between turns, even though they may resort to a spontaneous wedge through the turn itself. For the first weekend, that was the majority of what we worked on.
From there, we will move on to other balance drills the next few weeks, as we give each child the chance to get their "ski legs" back. It's important to remember that most of these children are very young, have skied a limited number of days in their lives, and we were seeing them on their first day on skis for the season. It simply takes some time for what they've learned in the past to return. So, the goal is to make some tiny adjustments, and let the little guys get in some mileage.
As we get to the point where balance is no longer an issue, we have all kinds of things to work on. But for now, we are just starting and it's all about the balance.
Hopefully, the forecast is wrong and we won't be skiing in pouring rain this coming Saturday.
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Wow - long time no post
My life can only be described as crazy right now. I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. At this time of year, I don't really expect to post on my fly fishing blog, but this one normally gets some attention.
Healthwise, everything is holding steady. I got through my first round of Ibrance just fine. I did have a mild head cold at the end of the round, and it's lingering a bit, but it's been pretty mild. My neutrophils count at the end of the first round was good enough to head straight into the second round. Other than a few minor issues - hair thinning a bit, some nausea, and a bit of fatigue (really a need for more sleep), I'm doing OK on the medication. I'll finish round 2 this weekend, get my blood work done on Monday, and then hopefully start round 3 the following weekend.
On January 9th, I will make my next trip to Sloan Kettering to see how the drug is working. If I've had no growth in my one small tumor, we will simply stay the course. If the tumor has shrunk or is gone, I'll be ecstatic. And, if things are still growing, we will discuss other options that I have. And, there are plenty of remaining options.
While this is going on, I've been swamped at work. In the past 18 months, I've made IT Security a major focus of my work. We are a small company, but we still handle protected health information (PHI), and we are bound by the law known as HIPAA. We had done OK on a a self-assessment tool a few years ago, but I knew that this was not the same as a full security assessment performed by an outside agency.
But, earlier this year, our biggest customer was purchased. That organization is now owned by a company, that is owned by a company, that is owned by one of the largest insurers in the country. Because we use PHI associated with the owned organization, we have to meet the security requirements of a company with annual revenue close to $200B. Yes, that's a B, as in billions. We don't even have a million dollars per year in revenue right now, so this is a daunting task. Many of the things that we were missing were policies. Those are easy to deal with - write the policy and then enforce it.
But, we are also missing all kinds of tools that monitor systems, looking for bad actors. I don't have the full costs yet, but my current guess is that we are looking at $25K in upfront costs, and then at least $5K per month in additional charges. To be honest, this exceeds our profit on this contract, so doing it out of our own pocket is prohibitive.
We are currently working with the big company and our customer to explore alternative ways to pay for this improved security. I don't disagree with the need to do it, but we simply don't have the money right now. And, it's been a very good exercise for me. I have learned so much about IT Security in the healthcare world in the past year, and I am now a better prospective employee for other organizations. I imagine that I could help to improve the security at most healthcare organizations in the country right now, and I've updated my resume to tout these new skills.
I must admit that our company is struggling a bit right now. We have only a few paying customers, we have no recent sales, and we have one grant that we are working on. To be honest, we are losing money at the moment, and this is with most staff going unpaid or working reduced hours. After 10 years with this organization, 8 of them full time as the head of the software development department, it honestly looks like we might not make it more than a few more months.
So, I've been looking for a new job, and I think everyone in my company is either already employed elsewhere, is planning to retire, or is looking like I am. I am still working hard to try to keep us afloat, but it honestly feels like a few people have already given up really trying. If we don't make it, I will certainly be sad. I've devoted almost 1/3 of my career to this company, I really believe in what we do, and I'd hate to see our products fall into disuse. But, without one or two new sales very soon, it's hard to see a financial path forward.
This is the first time that I've actively looked for a job since 2006, and the world really seems to have changed in that time frame. So have I. I am now officially old in the IT field, and I've clearly hit some age discrimination. In at least two cases, I failed to get an offer when I was clearly well qualified for the job, and I was stunned by the lack of an offer. Before I turned 50, an interview always seemed to result in an offer. Since turning 50, I have not gotten one job offer. In some ways, this is to be expected. I'm more senior, in IT leadership, and I have a higher salary. The higher the salary, the more difficult it is to get a commensurate job. But, I think age has played a role in a few cases as well.
Currently, I have three options out there. Only one of them is in health care, so I'm hoping that this situation works out. In some ways, I think I have an inside track on this job, based on my prior career experience with some of the people at the new company. I will know more by the end of the week. The others are in different problem spaces, but the companies seem very committed to doing things the right way, using modern development methodologies, and I am very interested in them as well.
On the workout front, things are moving along just fine. Since returning to CrossFit at the end of July, I've had four very good months of consistent training. In three of those months, I tied or exceeded my previous best number of CF workouts for that month of the year. The yearly calendar does affect how many classes I can get to (holidays can reduce the number, for example) in a month, but the last 4 months have been pretty good.
The only downside is a slight overuse injury that is affecting my right knee. I am seeing a physical therapist for the knee, and things are improving slowly. I was unsure how the knee would do with skiing, but I skied both days last weekend with minimal complaints from the knee.
That takes me to my last topic of this post - skiing. This will be my 18th season as a ski instructor, and I was promoted to a supervisory role this winter. Rather than teaching children how to ski, I'm going to be a mentor for our younger instructors, training them, skiing with them and their groups, and trying to help them to become better instructors. I'm excited to be doing this work. It will be an interesting change from my previous years, and an opportunity to have more influence on the quality of the program where I work.
I do have a trip to Sloan Kettering in January. I have to hope that the Ibrance is working, and if it is, I'll be free to ski the rest of the winter uninterrupted by any other treatments.
All in all, life is a bit stressful due to the job situation. But, at the same time, there are changes afoot, and I'm looking forward to some new challenges. I don't ever want to feel like I've become too old to excel in a new opportunity. I think I still have a lot to offer in my career field, and I'm likely to get that chance soon.
Healthwise, everything is holding steady. I got through my first round of Ibrance just fine. I did have a mild head cold at the end of the round, and it's lingering a bit, but it's been pretty mild. My neutrophils count at the end of the first round was good enough to head straight into the second round. Other than a few minor issues - hair thinning a bit, some nausea, and a bit of fatigue (really a need for more sleep), I'm doing OK on the medication. I'll finish round 2 this weekend, get my blood work done on Monday, and then hopefully start round 3 the following weekend.
On January 9th, I will make my next trip to Sloan Kettering to see how the drug is working. If I've had no growth in my one small tumor, we will simply stay the course. If the tumor has shrunk or is gone, I'll be ecstatic. And, if things are still growing, we will discuss other options that I have. And, there are plenty of remaining options.
While this is going on, I've been swamped at work. In the past 18 months, I've made IT Security a major focus of my work. We are a small company, but we still handle protected health information (PHI), and we are bound by the law known as HIPAA. We had done OK on a a self-assessment tool a few years ago, but I knew that this was not the same as a full security assessment performed by an outside agency.
But, earlier this year, our biggest customer was purchased. That organization is now owned by a company, that is owned by a company, that is owned by one of the largest insurers in the country. Because we use PHI associated with the owned organization, we have to meet the security requirements of a company with annual revenue close to $200B. Yes, that's a B, as in billions. We don't even have a million dollars per year in revenue right now, so this is a daunting task. Many of the things that we were missing were policies. Those are easy to deal with - write the policy and then enforce it.
But, we are also missing all kinds of tools that monitor systems, looking for bad actors. I don't have the full costs yet, but my current guess is that we are looking at $25K in upfront costs, and then at least $5K per month in additional charges. To be honest, this exceeds our profit on this contract, so doing it out of our own pocket is prohibitive.
We are currently working with the big company and our customer to explore alternative ways to pay for this improved security. I don't disagree with the need to do it, but we simply don't have the money right now. And, it's been a very good exercise for me. I have learned so much about IT Security in the healthcare world in the past year, and I am now a better prospective employee for other organizations. I imagine that I could help to improve the security at most healthcare organizations in the country right now, and I've updated my resume to tout these new skills.
I must admit that our company is struggling a bit right now. We have only a few paying customers, we have no recent sales, and we have one grant that we are working on. To be honest, we are losing money at the moment, and this is with most staff going unpaid or working reduced hours. After 10 years with this organization, 8 of them full time as the head of the software development department, it honestly looks like we might not make it more than a few more months.
So, I've been looking for a new job, and I think everyone in my company is either already employed elsewhere, is planning to retire, or is looking like I am. I am still working hard to try to keep us afloat, but it honestly feels like a few people have already given up really trying. If we don't make it, I will certainly be sad. I've devoted almost 1/3 of my career to this company, I really believe in what we do, and I'd hate to see our products fall into disuse. But, without one or two new sales very soon, it's hard to see a financial path forward.
This is the first time that I've actively looked for a job since 2006, and the world really seems to have changed in that time frame. So have I. I am now officially old in the IT field, and I've clearly hit some age discrimination. In at least two cases, I failed to get an offer when I was clearly well qualified for the job, and I was stunned by the lack of an offer. Before I turned 50, an interview always seemed to result in an offer. Since turning 50, I have not gotten one job offer. In some ways, this is to be expected. I'm more senior, in IT leadership, and I have a higher salary. The higher the salary, the more difficult it is to get a commensurate job. But, I think age has played a role in a few cases as well.
Currently, I have three options out there. Only one of them is in health care, so I'm hoping that this situation works out. In some ways, I think I have an inside track on this job, based on my prior career experience with some of the people at the new company. I will know more by the end of the week. The others are in different problem spaces, but the companies seem very committed to doing things the right way, using modern development methodologies, and I am very interested in them as well.
On the workout front, things are moving along just fine. Since returning to CrossFit at the end of July, I've had four very good months of consistent training. In three of those months, I tied or exceeded my previous best number of CF workouts for that month of the year. The yearly calendar does affect how many classes I can get to (holidays can reduce the number, for example) in a month, but the last 4 months have been pretty good.
The only downside is a slight overuse injury that is affecting my right knee. I am seeing a physical therapist for the knee, and things are improving slowly. I was unsure how the knee would do with skiing, but I skied both days last weekend with minimal complaints from the knee.
That takes me to my last topic of this post - skiing. This will be my 18th season as a ski instructor, and I was promoted to a supervisory role this winter. Rather than teaching children how to ski, I'm going to be a mentor for our younger instructors, training them, skiing with them and their groups, and trying to help them to become better instructors. I'm excited to be doing this work. It will be an interesting change from my previous years, and an opportunity to have more influence on the quality of the program where I work.
I do have a trip to Sloan Kettering in January. I have to hope that the Ibrance is working, and if it is, I'll be free to ski the rest of the winter uninterrupted by any other treatments.
All in all, life is a bit stressful due to the job situation. But, at the same time, there are changes afoot, and I'm looking forward to some new challenges. I don't ever want to feel like I've become too old to excel in a new opportunity. I think I still have a lot to offer in my career field, and I'm likely to get that chance soon.
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